At the end of 2019, Bitcoin investors were still beaming with smiles

It has been a bumpy year for Bitcoin holders, but despite the hardships, the price of the cryptocurrency has surged by more than 95% over the past 12 months compared to the same time last year.

On New Year’s Eve of 2018, Bitcoin was priced at around $3,700. However, by the time this article was written in 2019, Bitcoin’s price had soared to approximately $7,300 — a 97.3% increase. Compared to other asset classes over the same period, Bitcoin’s performance was exceptionally strong. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose by 27.37%, while the UK’s FTSE 100 saw a modest increase of 14%. Decent gains, but there’s no doubt that 2019 was a challenging test for investors.

Bitcoin Price Chart for 2019
Bitcoin Price Chart for 2019

At the beginning of 2019, Bitcoin’s price continued to decline, reaching a low of $3,400 on February 8, according to data from CoinMarketCap. But after that, the price began to climb, with gains recorded every month until July 12, when Bitcoin reached its 2019 high of $12,955. Since then, the market has been marked by sharp price fluctuations.

The first major drop occurred shortly after the July peak. In just five days, Bitcoin’s price fell from nearly $13,000 to $9,481 on July 17. However, by August 6, the price had rebounded significantly to $12,240.

Similar patterns emerged in September, October, and November, with Bitcoin losing tens of billions of dollars in market value, only to recover in what often felt like miraculous rebounds. While these recoveries ultimately failed to push the price back to the July peak, anyone who bought Bitcoin in January would still be comfortably in the black.